The functionality of many computer applications involve the display of information to allow such information to be conveyed to a user. Such applications often include an application surface that extends beyond the visible bounds of the display. Such is common, for instance, in word processing applications, in which the entire document may not be viewable simultaneously within a display, or a web browser application in which the entire web page may be larger than the viewable area of the display. In such cases, the display is typically provided with some type of navigation control (such as scroll bars) that allows the user to navigate throughout the application surface.
Typical systems for drawing graphical user interfaces persists each element on the display and allows each element to be independently addressable. This does require, however, some processing and memory for each element. This content may also extend beyond the visible bounds of the screen, in which case, for efficiency purposes, only the visible content is rendered.